Greece will receive its next batch of bailout loans in time to avoid a
disastrous default, the country's finance minister said Tuesday, as
stock markets rallied on hopes that policy-makers around Europe were
preparing a comprehensive solution to the debt crisis.

Reports
that European leaders are considering bolder moves to relieve Greece and
other countries of their debt burden have buoyed spirits in financial
markets, though officials in Chancellor Angela Merkel's government
downplayed such speculation ahead of her meeting later with Greek Prime
Minister George Papandreou.

The current plan is to have Greece
implement painful debt-reduction measures in exchange for rescue loans.
Greece relies on funds from last year's euro110 billion ($149 billion)
package, and European leaders have also agreed on a second euro109
billion bailout, although some details of that remain to be worked out.

Greece's
international creditors are withholding the next instalment of the
first bailout loans until a review of the reforms is completed in the
coming days. Without the money, Greece faces bankruptcy in mid-October,
potentially sending shock waves through the financial sector in Europe
and abroad.

Israel should just go for it. The Hamas-controlled Palestinians will attack them no matter what they do and the US has been less of a friend as of late:

The United States said on Tuesday that Israel’s decision to approve
construction of 1,100 homes for Jews on annexed land in the West Bank
was “counterproductive” and urged both Israel and the Palestinians not
to take steps which could complicate resumption of direct peace talks.

Here’s a modest proposal: Name the “protester” accused of throttling
an employee of the Vancouver Club where U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney
appeared Monday night. Shame him, like the Stanley Cup looters and
rioters were shamed. Too rough? Well, if destruction of property and
theft warrant anti-riot vigilante websites — which seem better at
protecting public interests than some Vancouver police brass and the
Crown, to date — then why not an alleged physical assault?

As this Vancouver Sun photograph of the Monday night brouhaha demonstrates, the alleged attacker lunged
at the unwitting employee who, after all, was just doing his job, trying
to help registered guests enter the private downtown club to hear Mr.
Cheney discuss a new book he is promoting. In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir
sounds interesting, not just because Colin Powell has claimed it is
riddled with “cheap shots,” or because it has raised the hackles of
Condoleezza Rice, another former Secretary of State from the Bush/Cheney
administration.

Mr. Cheney accepted an invitation to speak in Vancouver from a local
book club. Approximately 250 men and women gathered outside the
Vancouver Club to protest his visit. “We’re very angry that he has
chosen Vancouver as the first location outside of the United States to
do a book tour event,” one protest organizer told reporters, “and we
feel it’s important that citizens of Vancouver show that we won’t
tolerate a war criminal coming and speaking in our town…We hope to set
an example that Cheney doesn’t see Canada as a safe haven.”

Just like threatening the Pope with arrest or harm, nothing will come of it. It has always been about the attention.

Things like this are the reason why state-funded broadcasters are losing viewers:

The BBC, Britain's state-funded broadcaster, is facing a backlash
from leading presenters over the advice they should use "religiously
neutral" terms instead of BC or AD because non-Christians could be
offended.

Guidance from the broadcaster's ethics specialists said
the phrases Common Era and Before Common Era should be considered as
replacements for Before Christ and Anno Domini.

"As the BBC is
committed to impartiality, it is appropriate that we use terms that do
not offend or alienate non-Christians," it said. "In line with modern
practice, BCE/CE (Before Common Era/Common Era) are used as a
religiously neutral alternative to BC/AD."

James Naughtie, a
presenter of BBC Radio 4's influential Today program, told The Daily
Telegraph, "Nobody has suggested this to me, and if they do, they will
get a pithy answer, which may be too pithy to share with readers of the
Telegraph."

His fellow Today presenter, John Humphrys, said he did
not see "a problem" with using BC and AD, since the terms were "clearly
understood" by most audiences.

During his Sunday morning
political program on BBC One, Andrew Marr said he would also continue to
use the traditional date descriptions.

"I say AD and BC because
that's what I understand," he told viewers. "I don't know what the
Common Era is. Why is it the Common Era in 20 AD and it wasn't the
Common Era in 20 BC?"

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who
presented a BBC documentary on the Romans, described the plan as
"puerile, spineless and absurd."

He said, "If the BBC doesn't want
to date events from the birth of Christ, then it should abandon the
Western dating system. Perhaps it should use the Buddhist calendar,
which says that it is the 2,555th year since the nirvana of Lord Buddha.
Perhaps it should have a version of the old Roman calendar, and declare
that this is the fourth year of the fourth consulship of Silvio
Berlusconi. It could say that this year was 13,400,000 or whatever since
the Big Bang, or maybe the BBC should switch to the Mayan calendar and
announce that 2011 is the year 1 BC - before the catastrophe that is
meant to engulf the planet.

"We don't call it 2011 because it is
2011 years since the Chinese emperor Ai was succeeded by the Chinese
emperor Ping (though it is); nor because it is 2011 years since Ovid
wrote the Ars Amatoria. It is 2011 years since the (presumed) birth of
Christ. I object to this change because it reflects a pathetic,
hand-wringing, lefty embarrassment about thousands of years of cultural
dominance by the West."

The beginning of the Common Era is dated
from the same point as the Gregorian Christian calendar, but removes any
reference to the birth of Jesus.

The controlled chaos and din of the hospital emergency department make
for compelling television drama, but in real life the constant noise can
stress out ER staff and threaten the care they give, a new Canadian
study suggests.

Sarah
Palin's family attorney John Tiemessen has written a letter to Maya
Mavjee, the publisher of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, that Palin may sue her, the company, and the book's author
Joe McGinniss "for knowingly publishing false statements" in his book
released last week, "The Rogue," ABC News has learned.

Unknown
assailants blew up an Egyptian pipeline in Sinai on Tuesday that
supplies Israel and Jordan with gas, security sources and witnesses
said.

A
witness told investigators he saw three men jump out of a small truck
at a pumping station in an area known as al-Maidan, southwest of the
city of el-Arish, and open fire on the pipeline, the security sources
said.

This
was followed by a large explosion heard across the city and witnesses
said 15-meter high flames could be seen shooting up from the pipeline.

Unlike
Barack Obama, Herman Cain comes from African-American roots, with slave
ancestors, and blue collar parents. While Obama's Luo ancestors in
Africa were slave holders, Cain's ancestors were slaves in America.
Cain didn't attend any elite prep schools or Ivy League universities, he
was the first member of his family to attend college and rose on merit
in the corporate world, before the era of affirmative action. He is, to
use Al Sharpton's phrase, "authentic."